HOLLYWOOD movies tend to romanticize the men tally challenged. Not first- time Australian director Elissa Down, who draws on her own experiences for "The Black Balloon," an unsparing but sympathetic look at a family with an autistic teenager.
The main protagonist is 15-year-old Thomas (Rhys Wakefield), who struggles to balance his love for and his growing mortification at his afflicted other brother, Charlie (Luke Ford, Brendan Fraser's son in "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor").
Among other things, Thomas has to chase Charlie into the bathroom of a gorgeous new schoolmate (Gemma Ward) on whom Thomas has developed a crush.
The situation comes to a head when their enormously patient mother (the always-wonderful Toni Collette) is hospitalized during a difficult pregnancy and their soldier dad asks Thomas to take charge of Charlie, who also has ADD and is given to fits of rage.
"The Black Balloon" doesn't sugarcoat the difficulties faced by this family, but this small gem has a very satisfying ending.
Megan Lehar The Black Balloon
Directed by: Elissa Down
Cast: Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Gemma Ward
Running Time: 1 hr 35 min
Rating: PG-13 Plot: Thomas Mollison (Rhys Wakefield) moves to a new town with his family, including pregnant mother Maggie (Toni Collette) and an autistic brother (Luke Ford). He desperately wants to fit in at his new high school, but finds it hard. Having a brother on the “spastic” bus doesn’t help. Until he befriends Jackie Masters (Gemma Ward), an alarmingly beautiful girl with a compassionate heart. Who’s It For? A coming of age movie for people who are sick of coming of age movies (like me). Also, anyone who every really wanted a Super NES. Expectations: I’d read a good review, but didn’t know much about it other than it was about a family with an autistic son. SCORECARD (0-10) Actors:
Rhys Wakefield as Thomas Mollison: Thomas wants to be a normal team, which means that he wants to be popular and have the hottest girlfriend. But he feels like an outsider due to the emotional maturity he’s gathered from having a severely autistic brother. Wakefield plays what could be a tired role but acts like he’s doing it for the first time. The heart of this story lies with Thomas’ desire to be good to his loving brother, despite his anger and frustration at never being able to be really carefree. Wakefield has a gift for being genuine, my belief in the film hinged on caring for Thomas, and I did. I expect great things from him.
Score: 7
Toni Collette as Maggie Mollison: Collette makes Maggie a fierce mother. Maggie loves her sons and feels like a lioness, protecting her cubs. In the hands of someone else, this may seem like nothing new. But Collette is so amazing. She projects mother love. She’s not the central character, but without her I don’t think I’d believe the rest of the film so completely. Give her an Oscar finally!
Score: 9
Luke Ford as Charlie Mollison: Ford plays the autistic son. I’d imagine it’s a hard role to play, and I had to believe Ford’s performance. And I did, completely. For a young actor, he does an amazing job of throwing himself into the role. Like an enormous three year old, Charlie barrels through the film wreaking havoc while trying to be good and please his family. Ford displays every passing emotion Charlie feels. I could understand why his family protects him so fiercely.
Score: 9
Gemma Ward as Jackie Masters: Every coming of age movie needs a girl (at least if it’s about a boy, or a lesbian) and Ward plays Thomas’ objet d’amour. She certainly looks the part, the girl’s skin glows and her eyes won’t stop sparkling. But beyond looking beautiful, she doesn’t do much. In the scene where she’s meant to be pouring her heart out to Thomas, I just kept wondering how her eyebrows were plucked so perfectly. So maybe I missed the point. In a film where the rest of the acting is so strong, hers is just an adequate performance.
Score: 6 Talking: From Charlie’s outbursts to Thomas’ inability to articulate his feelings, the dialogue feels real. No one spouts exposition or tries to encapsulate the movie, each character just exists as who he or she is in the moment.
Score: 8 Sights: The Mollisons move to a typical, Australian suburb, which doesn’t look much different from a typical American suburb. The scenery is pretty much what you’d expect. Nothing terribly exciting here. Still, I’m glad they chose to focus on the story rather than looking pretty.
Score: 6 Sounds: Some good pop songs in there, I heard the Go-Betweens and got a little excited.
Score: 7 PLOT SPOILERS Best Scene: Charlie masturbates under the table during Thomas’ birthday dinner, freaking out Jackie. So Thomas goes crazy and destroys Charlie’s Super NES, leading to an all out family brawl. That scene, combined with the following scene in the hospital, where Charlie gets stitched up and Thomas holds the baby, really shows the highs and lows of this family. Ending: Thomas seems to finally find peace with his brother. I didn’t realize until I saw it, but that’s exactly what I wanted. The ending works perfectly. Questions: How much should you give up for your family? Can you ever really love someone for who they are instead of despite who they are? Rewatchability: The subject matter is serious, but the tone is light overall, and I left feeling good. You could definitely watch this again, on DVD or TV. OVERALL
When Hollywood makes a film about someone with a disability, it tends to be grandiose and tragic. This film focuses on the day to day mundane aspects of living with someone who is different. Down made a beautiful film about character growth. The pleasure in this film comes from watching a family who love one another try to make good decisions. It’s a totally simple idea, but one that must be hard to pull of well, since you don’t see a lot of films where it works. Collette, Wakefield and Ford all give really great performances. By the end, I loved them and their family. Final Score: 8/10
The Black Balloon
Rated M Review by Margaret Pomeranz
Fresh from its win of the Crystal Bear in the Generation 14 Plus Section at the recent Berlin Film Festival comes THE BLACK BALLOON by first-time co-writer/director Elissa Down.It’s about the Mollison family, Army Dad, Simon, (ERIK THOMSON), very pregnant Mum, Maggie, (TONI COLLETTE), and sons Thomas, (RHYS WAKEFIELD) and Charlie, (LUKE FORD). Charlie is autistic.
The family has recently moved to the outer suburbs of Sydney, so Thomas has to fit into a new school yet again and cope with Charlie when Maggie has to rest up.
Thomas’s burgeoning relationship with Jackie, (GEMMA WARD), is going fine but Thomas is becoming increasingly resentful of the burdens placed on him by his brother. This is such a strong film. The role of Thomas is a knife-edge one, it could so easily be made unsympathetic, but RHYS WAKEFIELD makes us empathise with Thomas’s agonies, and LUKE FORD makes Charlie both loveable and exasperating, another big achievement.But towering over the film is the performance of TONI COLLETTE, she is just so good in every role she takes on, and ERIK THOMSON gives solid support as Simon. Model turned actress GEMMA WARD steps up to the plate.The director Elissa Down grew up with two autistic brothers so there’s a real truth to what we see in The Black Balloon.
It’s a very auspicious debut for this young Australian filmmaker.
Further comments
DAVID: It sure is and I do hope people go and see this film because I know that you hear that it's about autism and people might say, "Oh, autism, I'm not interested in that".
But it's a wonderful film this, because it brings out so much humour and emotion out of the situation. I mean you really feel for the members of this family and especially for Thomas because he's 15. He's finding he's a normal teenager. He's just arrived to a new school.
MARGARET: Peer group means everything...
DAVID: Peer, everything, that's right.
MARGARET: ...you know, and some of the kids at the school are just so...
DAVID: They're really horrible, yeah.
MARGARET: Disgusting.
DAVID: Yeah, and it's so beautifully played. I mean, he's, I guess, based on Elissa Down, the director's, own experiences. But also, I think, Gemma Ward is wonderful too. I mean she plays Jackie with, Jackie's such a generous, sympathetic person who embraces her boyfriend's brother as well as the boyfriend.
MARGARET: Yeah.
DAVID: And it's just a bit of a, it's a film full of humour, as I say, full of emotion and, not the least bit confronting in that sense.
MARGARET: Do you know, I sometimes think that Australian films find it really hard to address emotion. But there's a scene in this film that is just heart breaking, you know?
DAVID: Mmm.
MARGARET: I think...
DAVID: And what about that last scene? The ending is so beautiful to this one.
MARGARET: Oh, I think that the one before that's pretty amazing.
DAVID: I think this is a really good film. The Black Balloon By Thomas Mollison is a teenager trying to fit into a new school in western suburban Sydney in the early 1990s. Up until now, his family has been his life.
Dad’s in the army, and they’ve moved around a lot. And with his middle-aged mum pregnant, Thomas has to take more responsibility for Charlie, his autistic brother.
Problem is, when Tom falls for high school girl Jackie, he suddenly finds all of this an impossible burden. Particularly Charlie, whose infantile, sometimes genitally fixated antics are beyond embarrassing.
Writer-director Elissa Down’s The Black Balloon works as a gentle character study. The performances are strong, with Rhys Wakefield anchoring the movie as the confused and awkward Thomas.
Luke Ford convinces in the difficult role of an autistic and, after some early faltering moments, supermodel Gemma Ward finds her stride as equal parts beautiful woman and gawky girl.
Toni Collette and Erik Thomson do well as the fiercely protective, but exasperated parents.
Down has lived her subject – she grew up with two autistic brothers – and the conflicts feel real. She also has a good eye and the film is elegantly shot. But The Black Balloon could’ve done with more story.
This is pretty much just about Tom coming to terms with the fact that Charlie isn’t going to change. Because it’s something we grasp immediately, we wonder why he doesn’t.
There are also disparate elements – Tom’s life-saving course sub-plot leads nowhere and we can only wonder why dad talks to a teddy bear. But when Down hits the right notes, as in the rain-shower scene, the film is truly lovely.
For me, The Black Balloon never reached the heights of the similar Aussie film Clubland, but it is an enjoyable and heartfelt slice of life that rates three stars.
Boasting strong performances and an eager, energised attitude, The Black Balloon is too small-scale to really connect with audiences. By Toni Colette leads a familiar but mostly unknown cast in this local drama, which opens with the hard-luck Mollison family moving to a new city, giving 15-year-old Tom (Rhys Wakefield) the stress of fitting in to a new school as well as caring for his autism-affected brother Charlie (Luke Ford). The film, however, soon moves into darker territory, focusing on Tom’s frustration at the responsibility he didn’t ask for and which he fears will affect his own shot at happiness. The Black Balloon seems to capture the challenges of caring for those who don’t fit into polite society perfectly, but it begs the question: is it something that you want to see? Sure, it’s a giant leap away from pirates and robots that turn into trucks, but few of us need any reminding that life’s hard, and The Black Balloon is as likely to make you feel guilty about your own life as it does sympathetic to the Mollisons’. Writer/director Elissa Down and production designer Nick McCallum get the (circa) late ‘80s period perfect in their western suburbs Sydney location, and the performances sell the rest. Collette is as flawless as she’s ever been, but the real surprise is model-turned-actress Gemma Ward, who plays Wakefield’s romantic interest. The role doesn’t tax her abilities too much, but she deserves kudos for not starting out with a role in an American teen sex comedy or as a slice of action movie eye candy. The Black Balloon is accomplished and eager, but whether it will connect with local audiences is another matter altogether. Filmink 3.5/5
HOLLYWOOD movies tend to romanticize the men tally challenged. Not first- time Australian director Elissa Down, who draws on her own experiences for "The Black Balloon," an unsparing but sympathetic look at a family with an autistic teenager.
The main protagonist is 15-year-old Thomas (Rhys Wakefield), who struggles to balance his love for and his growing mortification at his afflicted other brother, Charlie (Luke Ford, Brendan Fraser's son in "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor").
Among other things, Thomas has to chase Charlie into the bathroom of a gorgeous new schoolmate (Gemma Ward) on whom Thomas has developed a crush.
The situation comes to a head when their enormously patient mother (the always-wonderful Toni Collette) is hospitalized during a difficult pregnancy and their soldier dad asks Thomas to take charge of Charlie, who also has ADD and is given to fits of rage.
"The Black Balloon" doesn't sugarcoat the difficulties faced by this family, but this small gem has a very satisfying ending.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/item_orxLgjQWU2pH7xkvyZ28rN#ixzz1MBxdMKNB
The Black Balloon — The Scorecard Review
Megan LeharThe Black Balloon
Directed by: Elissa Down
Cast: Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Gemma Ward
Running Time: 1 hr 35 min
Rating: PG-13
Plot: Thomas Mollison (Rhys Wakefield) moves to a new town with his family, including pregnant mother Maggie (Toni Collette) and an autistic brother (Luke Ford). He desperately wants to fit in at his new high school, but finds it hard. Having a brother on the “spastic” bus doesn’t help. Until he befriends Jackie Masters (Gemma Ward), an alarmingly beautiful girl with a compassionate heart.
Who’s It For? A coming of age movie for people who are sick of coming of age movies (like me). Also, anyone who every really wanted a Super NES.
Expectations: I’d read a good review, but didn’t know much about it other than it was about a family with an autistic son.
SCORECARD (0-10)
Actors:
Rhys Wakefield as Thomas Mollison: Thomas wants to be a normal team, which means that he wants to be popular and have the hottest girlfriend. But he feels like an outsider due to the emotional maturity he’s gathered from having a severely autistic brother. Wakefield plays what could be a tired role but acts like he’s doing it for the first time. The heart of this story lies with Thomas’ desire to be good to his loving brother, despite his anger and frustration at never being able to be really carefree. Wakefield has a gift for being genuine, my belief in the film hinged on caring for Thomas, and I did. I expect great things from him.
Score: 7
Toni Collette as Maggie Mollison: Collette makes Maggie a fierce mother. Maggie loves her sons and feels like a lioness, protecting her cubs. In the hands of someone else, this may seem like nothing new. But Collette is so amazing. She projects mother love. She’s not the central character, but without her I don’t think I’d believe the rest of the film so completely. Give her an Oscar finally!
Score: 9
Luke Ford as Charlie Mollison: Ford plays the autistic son. I’d imagine it’s a hard role to play, and I had to believe Ford’s performance. And I did, completely. For a young actor, he does an amazing job of throwing himself into the role. Like an enormous three year old, Charlie barrels through the film wreaking havoc while trying to be good and please his family. Ford displays every passing emotion Charlie feels. I could understand why his family protects him so fiercely.
Score: 9
Gemma Ward as Jackie Masters: Every coming of age movie needs a girl (at least if it’s about a boy, or a lesbian) and Ward plays Thomas’ objet d’amour. She certainly looks the part, the girl’s skin glows and her eyes won’t stop sparkling. But beyond looking beautiful, she doesn’t do much. In the scene where she’s meant to be pouring her heart out to Thomas, I just kept wondering how her eyebrows were plucked so perfectly. So maybe I missed the point. In a film where the rest of the acting is so strong, hers is just an adequate performance.
Score: 6
Talking: From Charlie’s outbursts to Thomas’ inability to articulate his feelings, the dialogue feels real. No one spouts exposition or tries to encapsulate the movie, each character just exists as who he or she is in the moment.
Score: 8
Sights: The Mollisons move to a typical, Australian suburb, which doesn’t look much different from a typical American suburb. The scenery is pretty much what you’d expect. Nothing terribly exciting here. Still, I’m glad they chose to focus on the story rather than looking pretty.
Score: 6
Sounds: Some good pop songs in there, I heard the Go-Betweens and got a little excited.
Score: 7
PLOT SPOILERS
Best Scene: Charlie masturbates under the table during Thomas’ birthday dinner, freaking out Jackie. So Thomas goes crazy and destroys Charlie’s Super NES, leading to an all out family brawl. That scene, combined with the following scene in the hospital, where Charlie gets stitched up and Thomas holds the baby, really shows the highs and lows of this family.
Ending: Thomas seems to finally find peace with his brother. I didn’t realize until I saw it, but that’s exactly what I wanted. The ending works perfectly.
Questions: How much should you give up for your family? Can you ever really love someone for who they are instead of despite who they are?
Rewatchability: The subject matter is serious, but the tone is light overall, and I left feeling good. You could definitely watch this again, on DVD or TV.
OVERALL
When Hollywood makes a film about someone with a disability, it tends to be grandiose and tragic. This film focuses on the day to day mundane aspects of living with someone who is different. Down made a beautiful film about character growth. The pleasure in this film comes from watching a family who love one another try to make good decisions. It’s a totally simple idea, but one that must be hard to pull of well, since you don’t see a lot of films where it works. Collette, Wakefield and Ford all give really great performances. By the end, I loved them and their family.
Final Score: 8/10
The Black Balloon
Rated MReview by Margaret Pomeranz
Fresh from its win of the Crystal Bear in the Generation 14 Plus Section at the recent Berlin Film Festival comes THE BLACK BALLOON by first-time co-writer/director Elissa Down.It’s about the Mollison family, Army Dad, Simon, (ERIK THOMSON), very pregnant Mum, Maggie, (TONI COLLETTE), and sons Thomas, (RHYS WAKEFIELD) and Charlie, (LUKE FORD). Charlie is autistic.
The family has recently moved to the outer suburbs of Sydney, so Thomas has to fit into a new school yet again and cope with Charlie when Maggie has to rest up.
Thomas’s burgeoning relationship with Jackie, (GEMMA WARD), is going fine but Thomas is becoming increasingly resentful of the burdens placed on him by his brother. This is such a strong film. The role of Thomas is a knife-edge one, it could so easily be made unsympathetic, but RHYS WAKEFIELD makes us empathise with Thomas’s agonies, and LUKE FORD makes Charlie both loveable and exasperating, another big achievement.But towering over the film is the performance of TONI COLLETTE, she is just so good in every role she takes on, and ERIK THOMSON gives solid support as Simon. Model turned actress GEMMA WARD steps up to the plate.The director Elissa Down grew up with two autistic brothers so there’s a real truth to what we see in The Black Balloon.
It’s a very auspicious debut for this young Australian filmmaker.
Further comments
DAVID: It sure is and I do hope people go and see this film because I know that you hear that it's about autism and people might say, "Oh, autism, I'm not interested in that".But it's a wonderful film this, because it brings out so much humour and emotion out of the situation. I mean you really feel for the members of this family and especially for Thomas because he's 15. He's finding he's a normal teenager. He's just arrived to a new school.
MARGARET: Peer group means everything...
DAVID: Peer, everything, that's right.
MARGARET: ...you know, and some of the kids at the school are just so...
DAVID: They're really horrible, yeah.
MARGARET: Disgusting.
DAVID: Yeah, and it's so beautifully played. I mean, he's, I guess, based on Elissa Down, the director's, own experiences. But also, I think, Gemma Ward is wonderful too. I mean she plays Jackie with, Jackie's such a generous, sympathetic person who embraces her boyfriend's brother as well as the boyfriend.
MARGARET: Yeah.
DAVID: And it's just a bit of a, it's a film full of humour, as I say, full of emotion and, not the least bit confronting in that sense.
MARGARET: Do you know, I sometimes think that Australian films find it really hard to address emotion. But there's a scene in this film that is just heart breaking, you know?
DAVID: Mmm.
MARGARET: I think...
DAVID: And what about that last scene? The ending is so beautiful to this one.
MARGARET: Oh, I think that the one before that's pretty amazing.
DAVID: I think this is a really good film.
The Black Balloon
By
Thomas Mollison is a teenager trying to fit into a new school in western suburban Sydney in the early 1990s. Up until now, his family has been his life.
Dad’s in the army, and they’ve moved around a lot. And with his middle-aged mum pregnant, Thomas has to take more responsibility for Charlie, his autistic brother.
Problem is, when Tom falls for high school girl Jackie, he suddenly finds all of this an impossible burden. Particularly Charlie, whose infantile, sometimes genitally fixated antics are beyond embarrassing.
Writer-director Elissa Down’s The Black Balloon works as a gentle character study. The performances are strong, with Rhys Wakefield anchoring the movie as the confused and awkward Thomas.
Luke Ford convinces in the difficult role of an autistic and, after some early faltering moments, supermodel Gemma Ward finds her stride as equal parts beautiful woman and gawky girl.
Toni Collette and Erik Thomson do well as the fiercely protective, but exasperated parents.
Down has lived her subject – she grew up with two autistic brothers – and the conflicts feel real. She also has a good eye and the film is elegantly shot. But The Black Balloon could’ve done with more story.
This is pretty much just about Tom coming to terms with the fact that Charlie isn’t going to change. Because it’s something we grasp immediately, we wonder why he doesn’t.
There are also disparate elements – Tom’s life-saving course sub-plot leads nowhere and we can only wonder why dad talks to a teddy bear. But when Down hits the right notes, as in the rain-shower scene, the film is truly lovely.
For me, The Black Balloon never reached the heights of the similar Aussie film Clubland, but it is an enjoyable and heartfelt slice of life that rates three stars.
Boasting strong performances and an eager, energised attitude, The Black Balloon is too small-scale to really connect with audiences.
By
Toni Colette leads a familiar but mostly unknown cast in this local drama, which opens with the hard-luck Mollison family moving to a new city, giving 15-year-old Tom (Rhys Wakefield) the stress of fitting in to a new school as well as caring for his autism-affected brother Charlie (Luke Ford). The film, however, soon moves into darker territory, focusing on Tom’s frustration at the responsibility he didn’t ask for and which he fears will affect his own shot at happiness.
The Black Balloon seems to capture the challenges of caring for those who don’t fit into polite society perfectly, but it begs the question: is it something that you want to see? Sure, it’s a giant leap away from pirates and robots that turn into trucks, but few of us need any reminding that life’s hard, and The Black Balloon is as likely to make you feel guilty about your own life as it does sympathetic to the Mollisons’.
Writer/director Elissa Down and production designer Nick McCallum get the (circa) late ‘80s period perfect in their western suburbs Sydney location, and the performances sell the rest. Collette is as flawless as she’s ever been, but the real surprise is model-turned-actress Gemma Ward, who plays Wakefield’s romantic interest. The role doesn’t tax her abilities too much, but she deserves kudos for not starting out with a role in an American teen sex comedy or as a slice of action movie eye candy. The Black Balloon is accomplished and eager, but whether it will connect with local audiences is another matter altogether.
Filmink 3.5/5